Mayor plans city flag shipment

By Staff Writer

As soon as the first shipment of city flags arrives at the mayor's office in coming weeks, the newlyadopted, local standard will replace the former state flag outside downtown's government office building.

A prototype of the new green and yellow ensign was delivered to Mayor Bob Young on Wednesday afternoon, shortly before a full meeting of the Augusta Commission. He expects to order the city's first bannerssoon and anticipates their arrival in the next month.

"My position is that this is a city office building, and we have two poles out front, so to me it's appropriate to fly the city flag and the U.S. flag," Mr. Young said. "This is not an effort to snub the Georgia flag at all. It's an opportunity to correct something that should have been done all along."

Augusta Commissioners adopted the updated consolidated government flag late last year to replace former city flags that have flown downtown for 15 years.

Although state flags will continue to fly at other nearby city-owned properties including the Riverwalk, the Veteran's Monument at Fourth and Broad streets and the civic center, they will not flap in front of city government offices.

During a Jan. 31 ceremony, the former state flag was removed from the municipal building's pole, one day after state senators approved replacing the old Georgia banner with a new one. The former flag had drawn controversy for being dominated by the Confederate battle symbol of stars and bars.

Maintenance workers are utilizing the flag-free time to clean and paint the two bare poles in front of the Greene Street government building.

"Everybody seems pretty comfortable with it," Mr. Young said. "I showed it around yesterday afternoon at the commission meeting and I've shared it with the people I've come in contact with today (Thursday), and everyone seems to like it."